THE A L C O. 263 



white, black, and yellow. His deformity, 

 though fingular, is not difagreeable : His back 

 is arched ; and his neck (o fhort, that his head 

 feerns to proceed immediately from the iTioulders. 

 He is named in his own country micbuacanens. 

 The third, wliich Hkewife refembles our fmall 

 dogs, is called tecbichi. But he has a wild and me- 

 lancholy afpeift. The Americans eat his flefh*. 

 From comparing the telHmonies of Fabri and 

 Fcrnandes, it is obvious, that the fecond dog, 

 which this laft author calls micbuacanens , is the 

 fame with the ytzcuinte porzotli^ and that this 

 fpecies of animal exifted in America before the 

 arrival of the Europeans; and the fame muft 

 have been the cafe with the techicbi. 1 am per- 

 fuaded, therefore, that the word alco was a ge- 

 neric name, which applied equally to both, and 

 perhaps to other races or varieties that we are 

 unacquainted with. But, as to the firft, Fernan- 

 des feems to have been deceived both with re- 

 gard to the name and the animal. No author 

 mentions naked dogs in New Spain. This race, 

 commonly called I'urklfjj dogs, come from In- 

 dia, and other warm climates of tlie Old Con- 

 tinent; and, it is probable, that thofe feen in 

 America by Fernandes, had been tranfported 

 thither, efpecially as he mentions his having 

 feen this kind in Spain, before his departure for 

 America. The proof is ftill farther corobo- 



ratcd 



• Fernand. Hift. Anim. Nov. Hifp. p. 6. cap. 20. et p. 10. 

 cap. 21. 



